Management by Projects: How To Be Successful

How does your organization achieve stated business objectives? My guess is by a series of projects, all designed to move the needle closer to a larger strategy. How many times have you been in a meeting and someone said "Here is what we need to do, and I will go do it all by myself"? Probably almost never. Most of those "here's what we need to do" statements usually end in "and we need to put together a project team to get it done."

I think IT is very prone to organizational management by project. Joseph Phillips of CIO.com says managing an IT project is like juggling chunks of Jell-O: neither easy nor pretty. He goes on to say IT is especially slippery because it's always moving, changing and adapting. This is often the case, and because they are typically complex, IT projects fail often. It's unfortunate when you work in a function primarily managing your performance by the success or failure of projects.

If your organization manages by project, how can you be more successful working in that environment? Here are a few tips from the trenches:

Learn what your organizational pace is, what are the expectations for how quickly projects should be delivered. Pace (fast, slow) is typically dictated by the lifecycle of the products your company sells. Look for historical evidence of project delivery to set the pace.

Become an expert in your comapny's project management methodology. Then, learn where you can bend and flex that methodology. What's a hard rule and what's a guideline? Figure out the difference and you speed delivery.

Understand the difference between cost saving and cost avoidance. This may sound silly but people confuse it constantly. Cost savings in general refers to benefits of a project that the customer can add back into his budget and spend. These are costs that have already been planned, but are now unnecessary. Cost avoidance refers to everything else, typically more “soft savings.” Often cost avoidance involves slowing the rate of cost increases or obtaining “value-added” services.

Demonstrate your ability to measure the contribution of IT to the business through your projects. If you are not comfortable with financials, take a class. Learn how to implement financial controls in an IT environment, prepare ROI or cost benefit calculators, compare and contrast costs for different technical approaches.

If your project is long term, become a subject matter expert (SME). It makes me nuts when a PM has been on a project for more than a year but they tell me they are not a SME on the process, product, etc. You are not expected to know what the process owner does, but you have to demonstrate you've picked up some understand of the business you are supporting.

Socialize your ideas, frequently. I have seen some of the best project ideas go unsupported because of the PM's inability to socialize the idea for support. Be a champion for your idea/project. Turn it into a reality by garnering support from leaders. Evangelize your project. Communicate communicate communicate.

Ask for frequent feedback and then be open to constructive criticism. Incorporate it into your next project.

What other tips can you suggest for being successful in an organization that manages by project?

1 Comments

I think one has to understand the business value of the project, if project manager understands this he can communicate with all stakeholders effectively and he can also take right crucial decisions. Dividing projects in phases can also give good results specially when management is risk adverse.

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